Thursday, October 21, 2010

Sidney's Log - Day 3

Right off the top, not a very creative title. This sets the tone for the general mood, I think. WHAT a week! I was in meetings all week and for the past two nights did not get home until 10:30 or 11:00. Granted one of the meetings was a lot of fun with a delicious glass of a honey wine (lots of sugar there), but what this means is two days of NOT shredding it.

On a positive note, I stuck to my caloric intake and did a nice 2.43 mile walk at lunch yesterday. I will take this as a victory in and of itself.

Realization 1: I eat WAY WAY WAY too much sugar! Here are some shocking three day numbers for you: Monday, 62 grams; Tuesday, a more respectable 20 grams; Wednesday, 58 grams! Part of my late return home post meeting last night was the purchase of Shredded Wheat - no salt no sugar added. This should help?

Realization 2: There is a lot of salt in cheese. I KNEW cheese was salty. I say all the time "cheese is salty" but to SEE the sodium numbers on my daily plate creeping up with each bit of cheese I eat... Shocking.

Realization 3: Meat eaters must eat an insane amount of protein in a day. Yesterday, I had one egg, no tofu or legumes and my protein intake was 67 grams where my daily intake should be about 29 grams.

Periodically I am struck with a Shameful Memory I mean, it's not really hard to remember them because the memories are all of four days old, but still, I believe I am a NEW person.Shameful Memory: Sitting in a darkened movie theatre eating salt and butter pretzel bites with nacho cheeze, chased with a small bag of almond M & M's, washed down with a Coke Zero. Yeah. The Coke Zero, that will make the difference.

4 comments:

Being aware of what we eat is HUGE. If you're serious about changing the way you eat, and about making permanent changes I would highly recommend reading Michael Pollen's book "In Defense of Food" - it isn't about vegetarianism or veganism (which I find are being touted as diet aids lately, which is quite frankly appalling) but it's about making smart choices about what you put in your mouth. He also has a really simplified version of this book called "Food Rules" which I purchased immediately and have been implementing into my eating habits with great results.

How are you? Thanks for the tip. We already own Michael Pollen's book "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and enjoyed it and have been meaning to pick up "In Defense of Food". It's not so much that I don't know what to eat and not to eat - I did a lot of reading about food and used to be an "outside aisle only" of the grocery store kind of gal. But sometimes it is so easy to get lazy.

Hey Sydney! Yeah Michael Pollen's book is a really good reminder of why we need to be conscious of what we eat and although I was aware of a lot of what he was saying, the book put it in a great context that was easy for me to implement into my shopping habits, cooking habits etc. And I loved that his theory didn't "exclude" items like treats, meat, dairy etc - it promoted balance which sometimes I forget as I scarf down a bag of Zesty Doritos... oopsie :D

Also, I joined a "hot yoga" here in Dartmouth and it has been amazing... highly recommend it if you have one out your way!